An Orgy Of Goal Achievement – The Cirque du Soleil!


Having just seen Cirque du Soleil’s new show ‘Totem’ at the Royal Albert Hall, I was struck by all the goal achievement stories on display, so in this article I want to go over 3 of them…

I’ve seen lots of Cirque du Soleil’s shows over many years, and have always described is as a feast for the senses. Lots to look at, lots to listen to, you are in a live enrivonment which is being deliberately manipulated to get your mind stimulated.

The new show ‘Totem’ was no exception, and when it started with a man lowered down from the roof in a sequinned full body catsuit, I knew I’d enjoy the show!

As well as the sets and music, there are the fabulous artists, and it’s here I want to start the goal achievement stories…

When you absorb the show as a whole, it can be easy to take the skill of the performers for granted. All the dangling and spinning, jumping and twisting, it’s all highly skilled stuff, and most of the acts have real danger in them.

How do they do it? Well, for some of the performers, you have to have a certain body type, or it could never happen. For *all* the performers, though, they practice for hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, and you may be ahead of me on this one, year after year!

Dedication and hard work trains the body to do what others can’t, and I never fail to think of it when I watch the shows.
The ’Cirque’ can be seen as the height of the circus world, but not just for the acts – how about the musicians? That is the 2nd group of people I want to cover…

The band are half seen, half not seen in this show – they are fully costumed, and the set is designed to let you know they are there, but not to see them fully like you would a band concert. It’s a carefully constructed piece of the puzzle’s show, but more of that in a moment.

Think of the musicians and singers though, all working professionals, appearing in a prestigious show – did that happen by chance? No, it didn’t. They will have taken different routes to that stage (the show is made of many nationalities), but there is one constant, they all learnt their craft, and practised for years.

You can throw in the set designers too, the costumes, the make up, the lighting – all integral to the feel and success of the Cirque, all having honed what they do with commitment and hard work.

Then you can think of the show itself, the third goal achievement story. Internationally famous now, but started from small roots – some street entertainers in Canada wanting to create something different.

They put together the first show based on their idea of presenting circus in a new way, but struggled to get it off the ground. Money was the main problem, a showbiz ever-present, and the whole project came close to floundering many times.

They scraped through more than once, and kept going, until the whole thing took off, and their idea is celebrated around the world now.

I write about goal achievement in entertainment so many times, because it’s one of the hardest industries to succeed in. It’s also one I’ve been in, so I know how hard it can be. It makes those that get to high places stand out for me, but the principles in this article work in *any* area.

You may have no interest in hanging from a roof dressed in sequins, you may have no interest playing drums half in, half out of view.

Whatever your goal is though, be prepared for the effort needed to get there. Embrace the effort, the hard work, the perseverance, and you’ll be amazed at what you can achieve.

You won’t be surprised to hear that I write about this kind of effort in my book ‘Transform Your Life in 21 Days!’ which you can grab even if it’s 2am in the morning!

‘Til Next Time,
Health & Happiness,
Gordon

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